USD students took first place in the 2019 ARGUS University Challenge

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – The University of San Diego announced today that a group of its students took first place in the 2019 ARGUS University Challenge, marking the seventh time USD’s team has won the competition which challenges real estate students to develop an analytical report on a fictitious real estate investment opportunity.

According to USD and its Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate, more than 70 teams from roughly 50 schools participated in the competition sponsored by ARGUS Software Inc., including student teams from Harvard University, UC Berkeley and Cornell University.

USD’s team was composed of five Master of Science in Real Estate students and led by professor and faculty adviser Charles Tu. This year’s win comes on the 10-year anniversary of USD’s student team winning the inaugural ARGUS University Challenge. UCSD has also finished first or second in the competition every year it has existed.

“Over the course of the last 10 years, our MSRE students on the ARGUS team have consistently demonstrated their proficiency in ARGUS modeling, strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities,” Tu said. “This is a highly competitive real estate challenge, and the number and quality of participating schools over the years has grown considerably.”

The competition’s three highest-finishing teams and honorable mention team received a total of $25,000 in scholarships, according to USD. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo finished second and third, respectively, while the University of Melbourne received the honorable mention.

With the win, USD’s ARGUS team is invited to the 2019 ARGUS Connect Conference, which begins April 29 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Dana Point.

“We were thrilled to apply our coursework and enjoyed the process of working closely with our fellow cohort to create a winning product,” the team said in a statement. “We are humbled by the first-place recognition and are proud to have represented USD well.”